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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 1984)
Friday, September 28, 1984rThe Battalion/Page 5 Vandiver praises faculty scholar program By ROBIN BLACK Senior Staff Writer ■ Texas A&M University has made dramatic strides over the last two years in establishing and pursuing an active endowed faculty scholar program, University President Frank E. Vandiver said Thursday. I Vandiver’s enthusiasm follows the ' Board of Regents’ $10 million ap propriation Monday for the En dowed Faculty Scholars Program. Hg‘The $10 million will come out of the Available University Fund — part of the Permanent University Fund that A&M gets a chunk of each year — and will be used to match private donations to the program. The endowment program is four- faceted. The University oversees endow ments for academic chairs, professorships and faculty and grad uate fellowships. Each category must have a minimum endowment gift: named chairs must receive at least $500,000, professorships must re ceive at least $150,000, and faculty and graduate fellowships a mini mum of $75,000. Under guidelines set up by the University in late 1983, if the mini mum donation for each endowment is met, the University will supply matching funds for a second endow ment under the same category. The money for the various chairs and fellowships can be used for things ranging from research and new equipment to salary supple ments attractive to prospective fac ulty. Vandiver said the chairs are an as set when A&M is recruiting faculty, because not only do they attract top professors, but they also attract peo ple who want to work with distin guished chair-holders. Total funding the regents gave the program last year was $7 million. “Just by looking at how we’re doing with the program right now,” Vandiver said, “the $10 million might be a conservative estimate of what we’ll need.” There are 30 endowed chairs at the University now — only 11 of the chairs are filled and some of the chairs yet to be Filled are still pen ding final funding. There are 39 professorships — 16 of them filled — and 31 graduate fellowships, none of which have been filled. Nine of the chairs — the majority — are in the College of Engineering. Vandiver explains: “People donate the money for the chairs to the college they like. Lots just happen to like engineering. A lot of that has to do with the college’s prominence.” The business college isn’t doing too badly, either — it’s second with four chairs. When somebody donates money for a chair or fellowship, they get to decide which college the matching endowment goes to. “We give them suggestions which college they might pick the other chair to go to, but it’s all up to them,” Vandiver said. Vandiver said he’d like to see a chair established in the liberal arts college, but so far the only endow ment the college has is a single grad uate fellowship. A&M trails its rival — the Univer sity of Texas — substantially in en dowed chairs and fellowships. Yale students coping with strike siS United Press International I NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Some 1,500 white collar workers, mostly women, continued striking against Yale University Thursday, forcing students off the Ivy League campus for a second day into makeshift classrooms and to fast-food restau rants for meals. « Their walkout — bolstered by the refusal of the 1,300-member affiliate • piaintenance and food service work ers’ union to cross campus-wide E icket lines — failed to halt classes, ut 12 of 13 dining halls closed and a lack of technicians stalled cancer re search at the Yale School of Medi cine. si The largest strike in Yale’s 283- iear history stemmed from the 'S . at WntoS ; I .m. 30. th-'/« { TATIO* union’s rejection Tuesday of its first ever contract, <jn the grounds of al leged discrimination over wages and job security. Yale called it a final of fer. No new talks were scheduled and prospects of a long strike seemed likely. Most members of the Local 34, Federation of University Employees, are women. It represents 257 job ti tles, including secretaries, reception ists, phone operators, nurses, mu seum attendants, trainers, library aides, administrative assistants and research technicians earning an av erage of $13,400. About 100 of 1,500 classes were held off campus Thursday in com munity halls, churches, private homes, apartments and the York Square Cinema. “As faculty members, we feel it’s part of our duty as educators to teach people not to cross picket lines,” said Richard Halpern, a Re naissance literature professor, and an organizer of the off-campus classes. Terry Odendahl, a professor of anthropology, used a home com puter to set up off-campus classes and said 600 faculty members asked to be included in the scheduling. A woman student who didn’t want to be identified said she prefered off-campus classes. “Their main point is to disrupt the university as much as they can. It’s a move I’m willing to make to show my sup port.” Many students said eating off- campus on $72.80 — the weekly amount Yale reimbursed each stu dent for 21 meals — was an inconve nience, but generally sympathized with the strikers. Strikers interviewed said the issue was “comparable worth.” Mary Skurat, a $12,000-a-year art library assistant with a college de gree, said she and others were un derpaid. “I feel my reimbursement should be equal to the job I do,” she said. She and her husband are paying tu ition at various schools for three chil- ren, including a Yale junior. State senator speaks atAggie Democrats meeting Caperton blasts Gramm’s stance m kocrI ds “The I nend I ■els pn«| s year, a si ted as wSf By MICHELE FURLONG Reporter State Sen. Kent Caperton told a group of students “it is hard to be the conscience of a close-knit com munity when you are in the minori- Caperttfn’s speech, sponsored by the Aggie Democrats, was held Thursday night in 601 Rudder. Caperton said that a major prob lem with the student body is that they will not vote for any Democrat, no matter how qualified, because they do not have the “cloak of Re publican approval.” “I have always considered myself the champion of the students,” the former student body president said. He expressed disappointment in the trend of the student body toward voting Republican without regard to issues, simply because it was the thing to do. Caperton spoke out against Re publican Sen. Phil Gramm for his stance on student loans. “It is the ul timate in hypocrisy for someone like Phil Gramm to go to college on a federal program. . .and then turn around and cut them out,” he said. “If you have a cause to foster or goal to pursue, it should be the de feat of Phil Gramm, as he represents a threat to the rational approach to politics or solving problems,” Caper ton said. Caperton urged the students to support Lloyd Doggett in his cam paign against Gramm. Caperton ad mitted that he did not support Dog gett in the past, but believes that he is the man we need to defeat Gramm. He is now in the process of forming a steering committee for Doggett’s campaign. He also stressed Doggett’s support of the Pell Grant and grants to stu dents who want to go to college. Caperton questioned the Republi can policies of both Gramm and President Reagan, and told students to ask themselves “are we any better off today than we were four years ago?” His answer is yes, only if you are one of the rich. Furniture Outlet Welcome back Aggies. T.F.O. is ready to solve your furniture needs with a “welcome back” Sale on our everyday low prices. Check these prices while they last. 5 pc Dining set 69 95 7 pc Dining set 149 95 Bookcases 24 95 3 pc coffee & endtables 69 95 Lamps 24 s5 Bedframes 15.°° Full size mattress set 89 95 Chests 44 95 Dresser & Mirror 99 95 Nile stands 29 95 Sofa & chair 179 95 5 pc Living Room Set 229 95 Texas Furniture Outlet Open 9-7 712 Villa Maria Jesuit priest talks on writing’s history By ANN CERVENKA Reporter A Jesuit priest who has ap peared in the Middle East, Eu rope, South America, Asia and Africa said at a lecture series Thursday night that writing was once an intrusion into the world just as computers are today. Walter J. Ong, S.J., professor of humanities and English at Saint Louis University, was the first speaker for the President’s Lecture Series at Rudder Tower. Plato and Socrates found four problems with writing, he said. For example, writing is inhuman, something to be manipulated. Like the computer, writing was something foreign to many peo ple, he said. Also, he said, writing is unres ponsive. A text cannot explain, just as a computer cannot think. Untruths in a book “contaminate the thought stream forever,” Ong said. “That’s why books have been burned.” Plato and Socrates found that writing destroys the memory and weakens the mind as calculators do today, he said. “With a pocket calculator, you simply do not need to know the times tables,” he said. Finally, the two Greek philo sophers thought that the written word cannot defend itself as the actual spoken word can, Ong said. Writing is the “most momen tous of all human inventions,” Ong said. Throughout the his tory of man, illiteracy has been widespread. In fact, almost all of our ancestors have been illiterate. The oldest known language, cu neiform, is only about 6,000 years old and the alphabet is only about 4,000 years old. Therefore, oral cultures have been very important throughout history. Of the 4,000 languages in the world today, “only about 78 have a literature,” Ong said. “Only the tiniest fraction of lan guage has ever been written at all or will ever be written.” Although writing is an essential technological advancement in our society, “once reduced to space, words are frozen or in effect dead,” Ong said. A book is not even a text unless someone reads it, he said. Oral words are personally in teractive and warm while written words are abstract and immobile, he said. Oral words are more complete than written words be cause they must use intonation, or emphasis, of voice. Different readers interpreting aloud can use the same words in various ways, depending on the meaning desired, he said. Because writing does not have the immediacy of speech, the meaning can change with time. Your neighborhood bank is here!. Unitedbank College Station, n.a. MPACT 24HR. TELLER 2204 Longmire Dr. in Southwood Valley. 693-1414 Member FDIC. 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